Profiler enlisted in hunt for sex attacker

30 June 2003 — 10:00am

Police have enlisted the aid of one of only three FBI-trained criminal profilers in Australia as more officers were committed yesterday to the hunt for a sex offender targeting teenage girls and young women in Sydney's west.

Commissioner Ken Moroney said Detective Senior Constable Kristina Illingsworth of the Police Crime Faculty, the NSW force's only profiler, was examining statements from victims and evidence gathered by detectives in the past year from 11 attacks in St Clair, near St Marys.

Her profile will be used as a guide by police on the type of person they should be looking for, and she will continue to consult with police attached to Strike Force Agriculture, the now 40-officer team hunting the man.

Advertisement

Aside from a general description of the perpetrator as being thin with dark, short-cropped hair and aged in his early 20s, police will keep secret details of the profile relating to his mental status, possible family environment, employment and any other clues that might identify potential suspects.

Mr Moroney, who attended a briefing with detectives at their Regentville headquarters near Penrith early yesterday, said the inclusion of a criminal profiler - a detective whose tools include data of past similar crimes around Australia and the world, and who also views each crime scene to develop an image of the attacker, was a positive move.

He said Senior Constable Illingsworth had prepared a profile in 2000 of a man who raped a 90-year-old woman at Wee Waa that was correct in 10 of 11 points on the attacker.

In March she became the first police profiler to give open evidence in an Australian coronial inquiry - on the type of person who abducted Gordan Kotevski, 16, in Charlestown in 1994.

Five more detectives will join the strike force today, Mr Moroney said yesterday after meeting concerned residents living near Whipbird Place. A lane running between it and Swallow Drive was the scene of the ninth attack - upon a woman, 18 - in March.

As mounted police and dog squad teams began what will become regular patrols, Mr Moroney said he was satisfied everything possible was being done to ensure the safety of residents.

Addressing the attacker, whom he described as a "loathsome coward", he said: "You may be able to hide for now, but you won't be able to run away from us."